The historically used process of detecting product non-conformances is to first define the non-conformance to be detected, compose a written procedure to visually or otherwise detect the defined non-conformance, train operators on the written procedure, direct operators to execute the written procedure, and then manually record the total number of parts inspected and the total number of non-conformances detected. This process is highly labor intensive to set-up, especially when multiple part configurations and/or multiple non-conformance items are involved. The process is also vulnerable to operator training and performance when many process combinations for multiple part configurations and/or non-conformances must be retained and followed. The process also requires a measurable amount of labor to record data that, due to its manually recorded nature, is subject to low accuracy and limited visibility to engineers and decision makers.
Known systems and processes do not include a way to automatically display and facilitate a step-by-step validation process. For example, in known systems, the validation process is documented and facilitated using written procedures and paper or computerized data collection forms. In cases where multiple part configurations with varying composition of validation items must be inspected, the variations must be documented in multiple procedures. Rather than providing a way to automatically display each item of the required validation process in the order of execution for the current part configuration, current solutions require that inspection personnel retain the process information for every process performed or refer back to one of multiple procedures if the correct process is forgotten.